MISS STRICKLAND'S STUART PRINCESSES.* IF we are to judge from

the form and material of Miss Strickland's later works, it will not be easy to learn how she has gained her repute as an historical writer. For the carelessness and inaccuracy of her writing there can be no sort of justification ; paragraphs are repeated almost verbatim in the most unblushing manner, and errors and contradictions abound on all sides. We do not suppose any one who has a proper regard for history will read this book, if he has ever experimentalised with the Lives of the Tudor Prin- cesses by the same author. At any rate, we advise him not to make the attempt ; and to those patrons of the circulating library who amble gently through every new book on principle as soon as it can be had, who are not disposed to be critical so long as they are amused, and who will forget its very existence on the morrow, we feel tempted to whisper, 'Take care ; trust her not, she's fooling thee.' ['he fooling is not intentional, for she takes the greatest delight in what she is writing, and goes into the same indiscriminate rap- tures over history and dress, magnifying details that are too trivial to be noticed at all, and indulging in prejudices that are silly and un- reasonable. Of Miss Strickland's Lives of the Tudor Princesses, it has been written elsewhere that there was a kind of satisfaction in turning over the leaves of a bad book when it was thoroughly and beyond redemption bad ; we will not go so far as to apply that remark to this work, for it contains a great deal that is interesting, in spite of its careless setting and its small- talk ; and though, taken as a whole, it is certainly very poor, it is at the same time comparatively harmless. Had Miss Strickland been less ambitious, she would have been more successful ; had she been content to give her attention to one of our Royal Houses, instead of endeavouring to biograph all the Queens and Princesses of England and Scotland, whether they had a history of their own or not, she might, assisted by the Record Office and its graduates, have compiled some useful matter. As it is, her books can have but a momentary interest, from their light and gossipy nature.

The four Princesses of whom she has last written, and who furnish the materials for this book, are of the Stuart family, viz., Mary, Elizabeth, and Henrietta, daughters of Charles I., and Louisa Mary, youngest daughter of James II. The lives of these Princesses are less known in this country than those of the House of Tudor, for they were almost wholly spent abroad, and were consequently not familiar to English writers ; in fact

Miss Strickland states in her preface that the life of the Princess Louisa Mary has never before been written, and, she adds, that it will probably be read with no less interest than that of the queen her mother, Mary Beatrice d'Este, the consort of James II. (by Agnes Strickland). We may remark that the six chapters which purport to tell the story of this Princess, are in fact devoted as much to the doings and feelings of the mother, as to those of the daughter ; indeed, no one but Miss Strickland could have so spun out a life that did not number twenty years, and was chiefly passed away from the French Court with scarcely any companions but her mother and her brother.

The Princess Louisa Mary was the youngest daughter of James II. and his second wife, Mary Beatrice. She was born in 1692, in the presence, we are told, of the Chancellor of France, the President of the Parliament of Paris, the Archbishop of Paris, the Danish Ambassador's wife, all the French princesses of the blood, as well as the noble English ladies of the Court of St. Germain's, and (adds Miss Strickland) "the morbid melancholy which had oppressed King James's mind yielded to paternal rapture at the sight of the infant princess." This, we may remark, was James's fourteenth child, at which he yielded to such "paternal rapture." In due course she was baptised, and "the French ladies were aston- ished at seeing the little princess, who was then only a month old, dressed in robes of State, and with shoes and stockings on her tiny feet." To atone for an uneventful life, Miss Strickland spares no extravagance in her colouring of the acquirements of the Princess :—

"She had quick talents and a ready wit Her great natural

vivacity was succeeded by a composed and reflective manner from her fourth year. She was early placed under the care of Father Constable, a very learned ecclesiastic, who united to great talents sweet and

polished manners and a beautiful spirit He instructed his

young royal pupil from Scripture histories. He taught her

= Line a the Last Four Princesses of the Royal Hcntse of Stuart. By Agnes Latin and history, at the same time, and she acquired simultaneously those [what?] of England and France. She made reflections on all she heard and read which astonished her accomplished preceptor."

And this poor child was not eight years old!

In the second chapter of this brief life there is a glaring instance of the repetition, amounting to padding, to which we have alluded; compare the two quotations following, which occur on consecutive pages, separated only by a sentence of two lines :-

"His enfeebled frame was unable to support the agonising asso- ciations these words recalled. A torrent of blood gushed from his mouth and nostrils; he fainted, and was carried out of the chapel. Medical care restored him for a while, and he was ordered to the baths of Bourbon. He and the Queen bale a tearful farewell to their children on the 7th April, and after a short stay at Paris, proceeded on their long journey to Bourbon, where King James, after an attack of rheu- matio gout, recovered sufficiently to allow him and the Queen to return to St. Germain's, in June, to his anxious children, who had remained under the care of the Duke of Perth and the Countess of Middleton. Very constant had both the Prince and Princess ben in their corre- spondence with their absent parents during this long separation."

"Medical skill, and the tender care and nursing of his fond and faithful consort, appeared to recal King James from the grave. He rallied, and was ordered by the physicians to the baths of Bourbon. Louis XIV. sent his own physician to accompany and attend on his unfortunate kinsman. The King and Queen took a sorrowful leave of their children on the oth of April, and commenced their long journey. The Princess Louisa and her brother remained at St. Germain's, under the care of the Duke of Perth and the Countess of Middleton, the Princess's governess. The Royal children wrote dutifully every day, who, from time to time, sent to their absent parents messengers to inquire after these precious objects of their love, and affectionately responded to their letters."

The last sentence is a pretty specimen of confusion.

There are two matters Miss Strickland is determined shall not he forgotten by her readers, if she can prevent it, and were it not so tedious, it would be amusing to observe how incessantly she reminds them (1), that the Countess of Middleton was governess to the Princess Louisa ; and (2), that James Edward was four years older than his sister ; we have never heard either of these facts disputed, nor do we consider them of sufficient importance to require repeating seven or eight times.

We should like to ask Miss Strickland, (1), what she really considers were Queen Henrietta Maria's feelings on the marriage of her youngest daughter to Philip of France, for in one place she writes, "Queen Henrietta Maria received his proposal with un- feigned pleasure, but suggested the prudence of waiting till some- thing more distinctive could be told about her dower;" and a few pages further on, "the Q teen, her mother, greatly deplored her child's early marriage to so weak and uneducated a Prince ;" and (2), on what ground does she ignore the baptismal register in Exeter Cathedral concerning the name of Charles L's youngest daughter ; she allows that it is there recorded as Henrietta, but states positively in the same sentence that the names of Henrietta Anne were given "to the royal neophyte," as if she had been pre- sent herself at the ceremony. Sonic English authorities call her Henrietta Maria, and perhaps Miss Strickland has confused the name with that of Charles L's third daughter, Anne, who died at the age of five.

Specimens of Miss Strickland's thorough carelessness on small

points are as plenty as blackberries. History gives January, 1649, as the date of the execution of Charles I., and we are not aware of its ever having been questioned ; but Miss Strickland gives April, 1647, as the date of a letter from the Earl of Northumberland concerning the care and custody of the Royal children after the death of their father. In one place we read that the health of the

Prince (James Edward) continued to be most precarious for five years after the death of King James, and on the same page we find that in less than four years he had unexpectedly recovered, and opened, with his sister, a grand ball at Mark. Again, Miss Strickland states that in 1793 the vault containing the re- remains of the Princess Elizabeth was accidentally discovered, and that the leaden coffin and urn remained in perfect preservation, though a hundred and fifty-three years had elapsed since they were first deposited there ; by the ordinary rules of subtraction, this would take us back to the year 1610, when the Princess bad yet ten years more to live. Again, on p. 211, it is stated that the Princess Henrietta, in September, 1644, remained at Exeter for nearly a year ; as the city did not surrender to the Parliamentary troops until April, 1646, it must have been nearly two years before the Princess left the city. Again, on p. 219 we are told that Lady Dalkeith had [1646], by the death of her husband's father, become Countess of Morton ; but as

the said father did n3t die until 1615, the assumption of her new title by Lady Dalkeith was at least premature. Again, the famous "la Belle Stuart," of whom Charles IL was so deeply enamoured, was not the daughter of Lady Stuart of Blau-

tyre, as Miss Strickland asserts, but the daughter of Walter, youngest son of Lord Blantyre, who died in 1616-7. Also, the little Duke of Valois, who was born in July, 1661, is described in July of the following year as "then turned two years old." Again, Marie de Medici died in 1642, and not in 1613 ; and William Prince of Orange was born, if we are to credit Miss Strickland's fluctuating statements, in 1623, 1626, or 1627. Few of our readers would guess that by "Mary of England" was meant Charles L's eldest daughter, the Princess Royal and mother of William III., and yet she is so styled here.

These irregularities are, after all, not of much moment to ordinary readers, and scarcely deserve to be exposed, if we take into con- sideration how easily satisfied are those who will read the book ; but history ought not to be brought so low, nor ought it to be treated with such weak sentimentality as Miss Strickland copiously pours out. Also she is provokingly vague with her authorities, whether purposely so, we cannot say, but references to "Lambeth MS.," Gazette de France, Journals of the House of Commons, cannot be of much value to her readers ; and it is to be hoped that the materials she has culled from such sources have been treated with a more considerate regard for accuracy than those she has taken from general but unquoted sources. As a compilation this book is, as we have said, a very weak performance ; the interest that at- taches to the lives of the Stuart Princesses may, perhaps, redeem the book from total condemnation, bet the materials have been so carelessly handled, so indiscriminately utilised, or so insipidly glossed over, that Miss Strickland's character for historical writing will gain nothing, if it loses nothing, by her last effort.